Global Food Crisis

Global Deep Freeze Threatens 2010 Food Supply

January 12, 2010
Natural News

The global deep freeze now striking North America, Europe, China and other regions may lead to severe food shortages and price hikes throughout 2010. Right now, rare freezing temperatures are destroying root crops in their ground, wiping out citrus orchards and devastating food producers around the world. The upshot of it all? Expect food shortages and rising food prices throughout 2010.

This global deep freeze is all part of the extreme weather now being unleashed on the planet due to human beings polluting the world and altering the atmosphere. Scientists can't agree on whether the trend is global warming or global cooling, but no one can argue that something's wrong with the weather.

Rainfall and temperature patterns that used to be reliable are now going haywire. Where there were once reliable seasonal rains, there are alternating periods of drought followed by floods. Where temperatures were once mild and predictable, they're now fluctuating out of control, becoming too hot in the summer and too cold in the winter.

All this adds up to escalating crop failures that are now poised to have a real, noticeable impact on the global food supply.

"Sub-zero temperatures have made it impossible to extract some vegetables from the ground. Producers of brussels sprouts and cabbages are all reporting problems with harvesting. Cauliflowers are said to have turned to mush in the sustained frost," says a story published in The Guardian.

It goes on to report:

"In Ireland, 6,000 acres of potatoes remains unharvested and there are claims that up to three-quarters of the crop may be ruined. Potato growers in Northern Ireland say they are facing some of the biggest losses in recent history because of frost damage."

The UK Press Association also reports, "Food shortages are feared as it emerged that farmers are struggling to harvest vegetables in the big freeze, which will lead to higher food prices and damage small businesses." (www.google.com/hostednews/uk...)

New is also surfacing that the world's orange juice supply may now be destroyed:

"Growers in the sunshine state fear an even worse arctic blast Sunday night will decimate their crop, which accounts for 40-percent of the world's orange juice supply." (www.necn.com/Boston/Nation/2...)

All this destruction of food is already causing prices to rise. "Greengrocers in some of the worst-hit areas are reporting shortages, with the price of carrots and parsnips reportedly rising by 30% in some small shops," reports The Guardian.

Similar reports are also coming out of China, which has been hit hard by freezing weather.

Global Food Supply Is Now Threatened

The global deep freeze now devastating crops around the world leads to one inescapable conclusion: Food prices will rise throughout 2010. They were already on the rise in 2009, but thanks to the big winter freeze, they're headed much, much higher this year.

This may be much more than a one-time crisis, too. As reported in The Telegraph:

"For years, academics such as Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University, gave warning that we were 'sleepwalking' into a future where our food security was likely to be seriously undermined, whether by natural disasters, rising fuel costs, climate change or the massive pressures placed on the global food system by a rising population."

The fact is that plentiful food depends on cheap oil, fossil water aquifers and predictable weather. And all three are coming to an end! Unpredictable weather, in particular, is upon us right now.

In the years ahead, radical weather patterns will continue to compromise food production around the world. Floods, freezes, hurricanes and droughts will all take their toll. The result will be increased food prices and decreased food supply.

During this crisis, more people will be forced to turn to low-cost processed foods that will further promote diseases like obesity, cancer and heart disease. Fewer and fewer citizens of the world will be able to afford fresh, organic produce because it is precisely the fresh produce that's more easily destroyed by radical weather events.

This means, of course, that food-producing land will greatly increase in value, especially if it can produce food year round. And that means people who own such parcels of land in Hawaii, California, Southern France, Mexico or even places like Peru or Ecuador will find their properties steadily increasing in value. Wherever fresh food can be reliably produced in the years ahead, properties will tend to increase in value.

Land in areas hit by drought, floods or fossil water shortages, on the other hand, will collapse in value. Some areas that used to be fertile farmland will turn to desert. Others will suffer severe soil erosion from rains and storms. The ability of the world to produce fresh food is going to be compromised by unpredictable weather events.

Since the 1940's, we've lived in an age of easy food. But that food bubble is now collapsing, and as it does, it's going to catch most people off guard. Some will be able to compensate by simply paying much higher prices for the fresh food they need, but most people will not be able to afford to pay much more for food, so they'll turn to processed, long-shelf-life food instead. And before long, they will join the ranks of the diseased as a result.

Remember: Living food keeps you alive. Dead food makes you dead. The more fresh, living food you consume, the healthier you'll be. Sadly, our interference with the global climate is resulting in radical weather patterns that are destroying huge quantities of fresh produce, greatly reducing the supply of "living" food.

The alternative for individuals or families is to grow your own food. Grow as much as you can in your own gardens. Food security is the issue of the decade, I believe, and those who don't have the ability to grow at least some portion of their own diet may find themselves in an increasingly difficult position in 2010 and beyond.

Black Blade: Of course some of us are better prepared than others. Some are completely off-grid and self-sufficient which is really the way to go. Others simply stock up with short-intermediate term and long term storage. I have been watching the situation in Haiti and watching the situation deteriorate rapidly. The first needs are medical and water followed by food. Within three to five days without aid these people will turn on each other. Our own emergency response people in hazardous areas (like coastal California) are advised to have a 72-hour kit - though that is woefully inadequate.

When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America , you get a front row seat. - George Carlin

USDA is estimating wheat acres for harvest in 2010 at 37.1 million acres, down 14 percent from 2009 and the lowest since 1913.

USDA's Winter Wheat Seedings report blamed the falling acres on a late row crop harvest and wet weather which occurred in many states.

The winter wheat crop condition at the end of November was rated 64 percent good to excellent compared with 65 percent the previous year.

Soft red winter (SRW) wheat seeded area was estimated at about 5.92 million acres, down 29 percent from last year. Large acreage decreases from last year occurred in all SRW-growing states due to the late row crop harvest, heavy rains, and wet soil conditions.

Record low acreages are expected in Illinois, Indiana, Missouri, and Ohio. The largest acreage decreases are in Arkansas, Illinois, Missouri, and Ohio.

Winter wheat in Arkansas is down 230,000 acres, 53 percent below 2009. Acreage seeded in Missouri is down 360,000 acres, a 46 percent drop from 2009. Illinois is down 500,000 acres, 59 percent below last year. Ohio is down 210,000 acres, down 21 percent from 2009.

Hard red winter wheat seeded area is about 27.8 million acres, down 12 percent from 2009. Poor weather, low prices, and the late row crop harvest contributed to the decrease.

Acreage is expected to be below last year's level in most states in the HRW-growing area, with a record low in Nebraska. The largest acreage decreases are in Kansas, Montana, Oklahoma, and Texas. Winter wheat seeded in Kansas is down 700,000 acres, 8 percent below 2009 and the lowest planted acres since 1957. Montana is down 550,000 acres, 22 percent below 2009 and the third largest decrease on record. Winter wheat in Oklahoma is expected to be down 500,000 acres, the lowest acreage since 1971. Acreage in Texas is down 1 million acres, the fourth largest decrease on record and lowest planted area since 1973.

White winter wheat seeded area is estimated at nearly 3.33 million acres, down 1 percent from 2009. Planted acreage in the Pacific Northwest (Idaho, Oregon, and Washington) is up from last year. Winter wheat planted area is up 40,000 acres from 2009 in Idaho, up 50,000 in Oregon, and unchanged in Washington. Seeding began ahead of normal in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington.

By Nov. 8, virtually all fields had been seeded in the region with 90 percent of the acreage emerged in Washington, 81 percent in Idaho, and 67 percent in Oregon.

Durum wheat seedings in Arizona and California for 2010 harvest are estimated at 205,000 acres, down 33 percent from the 2009 level. Planted acreage is down 35,000 in Arizona and down 65,000 in California. Planting is ongoing in California's San Joaquin and Imperial Valleys. No major problems with the crop have been reported.

Black Blade: Supplies look good now but this is worrisome. I don't have any wheat in my storage but I have plenty of rice (white and brown), corn meal and some oats. I should get some wheat but then I would need to get a grinder.

When you're born you get a ticket to the freak show. When you're born in America , you get a front row seat. - George Carlin

A new film paints an apocalyptic picture of a world reduced to tinned goods. But could it ever happen here, asks Bee Wilson

In Cormac McCarthy's The Road, (the film of which is out this weekend), the only food left is in cans. In a post-apocalyptic wasteland, a father and son scavenge for tinned goods. "Chili, corn, stew, soup, spaghetti sauce. The richness of a vanished world."

Is this a vision of our not-too-distant future? Will we soon be stockpiling canned mandarin segments and clawing one another's eyes out for the last tin of powdered milk in Tesco? It's not a nice thought, but it's one that food campaigners have been begging us to face up to for some time now. In this uncertain world, we can no longer take our food supply for granted. For years, academics such as Tim Lang, Professor of Food Policy at City University, gave warning that we were "sleepwalking" into a future where our food security was likely to be seriously undermined, whether by natural disasters, rising fuel costs, climate change or the massive pressures placed on the global food system by a rising population. We shrugged it off, setting off in our cars for another wasteful trolley of ready-meals.

In 2008, American pundit Paul Roberts published The End of Food. Roberts argued that the "bullet" attacking the world's food system could come from any number of sources: avian flu, "a sharp spike in the price of oil, a series of extreme weather conditions, an outbreak of some new plant disease". Any one of these, and we'll be scrabbling in the canned goods aisles. More than one at once, and there might be no canned good aisles left to scrabble in. In April 2008, when spiralling food prices led to riots around the globe, people in Haiti were reduced to eating mud cakes.

At least that level of food anxiety could never happen in Britain. Or could it? For years, the Government told us everything was fine. This was a land of plenty. Only four years ago, Gordon Brown's Treasury assured us that food security in Britain was not an issue because we were a rich country, and could buy food from wherever we chose, as if the world were our personal larder. Now, finally, as The Sunday Telegraph reported last week, the Government has woken up to the problem. A new report launched on Tuesday entitled Food 2030 gives a warning that Britain can no longer afford to be complacent. "We need to think differently about food," said Gordon Brown in his foreword to the report, produced by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Setting out a new food strategy for the next two decades, the report says that the industry needs to prepare for "sudden shocks" such as natural disasters or price spikes. Britain will need to produce more food, we are told, but will have to do so sustainably, "without damaging the air, soil, water and marine resources, biodiversity and climate that we all depend on".

Here was a long overdue acknowledgment that farming is actually pretty essential. Unlike Gordon Brown, food is something we can't do without. Labour has hardly been the countryside's best friend. But at last, the "2030" report tells us the obvious truth that "the natural environment and the economy are intrinsically linked". The food and farming sector employs 3.6 million people. It is in everyone's interests to see this sector thrive. Britain will never be 100 per cent self-sufficient: life would be miserable without the imported pleasures of coffee, tea or spice. But the more food we can produce locally, the more secure our food supply will be in the event of sudden blips in the supply chain. UK farming, states the Defra report, "should produce as much food as possible, as long as it is responsive to demand".

Well said! Except that very little in the report suggests that this dying Labour government is going to take any serious steps to make the necessary renaissance in British farming come about. The Government wants us all to eat a "healthy and sustainable diet". Yet instead of any real reform, we are directed to "an enhanced eat-well website". There is a pointed lack of any mention of organic food. The report blethers about such things as the "milk roadmap" and the "fruit and vegetable task force". But there is no serious new injection of either money or laws to aid farmers. Sustain, a lobbying alliance for better food and farming, has already attacked the report as "soft", complaining that it constitutes a "series of minor tweaks to our fundamentally unsustainable food system".

By raising the idea of improving self-sufficiency, the "2030" report only brings home the extent to which we have moved in the opposite direction in recent years. The problem of food security goes far beyond this country, but even by the standards of our European neighbours, Britain performs badly.

Look at fruit. In 1963, we grew around 30 per cent of our own fruit; now it is closer to 5 per cent. Compare this with France, which in 1963 grew enough fruit to feed 90 per cent of the population and still produces enough to feed 80 per cent; or Italy which produced around 110 per cent of its fruit needs in 1963 and still does today. We may not have Italy's sun-kissed orange groves, but we could still do better with the land we have. Over the past 13 years, our self-sufficiency in food overall has plummeted from 75 per cent to 60 per cent.

Take dairy. Our milk and cream are among the best in the world. Give a spoonful of British double cream to a Frenchman and he will swoon. Yet our dairy farmers are in a quandary, unable to sell their delicious product for more than it costs them to produce it. A litre of milk costs the consumer 70-80p, of which the farmer gets only 21-28p, the same as it costs to produce. No wonder countless dairy farmers leave the industry.

There is a similar predicament in the honey industry. There is huge demand for British honey, boosted partly by awareness of the worrying collapse in honeybee colonies. Yet in many shops, all native honey is gone by halfway through the year. Of the 400g of honey per person we consume every year, only 80g is British. The reason? We currently have a mere 300 professional beekeepers in this country, many of them nearing retirement age. It will only get worse unless something is done. When I attended a forum on the future of honeybees at No 10 Downing Street last September, many well-intentioned words were spoken about saving British bees and honey. Yet when I suggested to a Government advisor that they might think of subsidising honey farmers, he laughed nervously.

It is all too easy to attack the "2030" report for its typical Brownian mix of hypocrisy and impotence. I wonder, though, how many of us really have the stomach for root-and-branch reforms of our farming system. The Conservatives have said that they want action on sustainable food "with a supermarket ombudsman and legislation to enforce honest labelling if the retailers won't act". But David Cameron has stopped short of spelling out what the "sustainable farming" he favours might really entail.

Biologist Colin Tudge, organiser of the Campaign for Real Farming, says that our politicians are "dangerously deluded" about farming. "Feeding people is easy," says Tudge, but only if our farmers switch to a "maximum variety" system of agriculture which puts plants first and meat second. This would involve a complete redesign of agriculture.

The odds are, we won't get the crisis measures we need for our food system until the crisis has already hit. So let's hope that The Road is just a scary story, not a prophecy.

This global deep freeze is all part of the extreme weather now being unleashed on the planet due to human beings polluting the world and altering the atmosphere. Scientists can't agree on whether the trend is global warming or global cooling, but no one can argue that something's wrong with the weather.

Any way you look at this guys, it is the news found and shared by one of our contributing members. I pray every day that the S is not going to HTF! However, it is just interesting to read, consider and be aware of what is going on.

Yeah, my focus is on the colder temps, lower crop yields and not the political angles spun by the media. Personally as an earth scientist (professional geologist) with a background in paleoclimatology I am dubious of any statistically meaningful contribution of so called "greenhouse gases) from human activity causing resulting in anthropogenic global climate change. In fact I am one of the early signers on the "Petition Project".

i haven't been planting much row crops for the last several years. the banking problems, expensive chemicals needed and terribly fickle prices have turned early crops into a no-no here. i can't make a crop and then lose money.

not that long ago i was making two row crops and one livestock every year. now i am down to hobby farm levels and look to be there till i start drawing social security.

i don't know how many US farmers have cut back like i have. could be a pretty big number--more than likely.

Many of my relatives farm in South-Central South Dakota. It's an area of dry-land farming (you plant and pray it rains). They primarily plant row crops and either dairy or run feeder cattle, no feed lots.

The fickle prices have made it rough, but they're all running full-bore farms. Talk about fickle weather, 5 years ago it was all drought. The only paying crops were wheat and grasses because by summer the corn and soybeans were all burnt. During the drought hay was so plentiful thousands of tons of it ended up rotting, no market for it.

Now, it's bumper crops of all types, a new record harvest was set this year. After all, the title of this thread IS Global Food Crisis. I'm just not buying into that premise based on a vested interest's claim regarding a large island off the coast of Europe.

I have a daughter. I tell her, "911 is what you dial after you're raped. 1911 is what you should have before they try."

Also, after the "dire cold" we're in the midst of a January thaw here. With daytime temps in the 30's, it feels more like March than January.

Musibike, it *would* be an interesting read if they didn't include so much hyperbole and misleading reporting. Freezing weather is destroying root crops in their ground? Say what? Farmers don't winter-over normal root crops like potatoes or carrots. They are harvested throughout the growing season or in the fall.

Weather has NEVER been predictable, so citing unpredictable weather as a cause of food supply issues is like saying hookers charge for their time. This is news?

Did you read the articles? Two are obviously slanted toward organic farming and have an agenda very much slanted against "normal" farming. Another concerns the British Isles. Our country is so diverse that their climate microcosm simply doesn't apply.

I haven't taken the time to check the USDA, but the article about small forcast wheat crops is definitely worded so as to sound dramatic. Record crops of wheat, corn and soybeans in 2009 aren't even mentioned.

I have a daughter. I tell her, "911 is what you dial after you're raped. 1911 is what you should have before they try."